Tragic story of Zenit St Petersburg's new hero

By Jonathan Wilson

12:01AM BST 11 May 2008

The fear among Zenit St Petersburg supporters ahead of the second leg of their Uefa Cup semi-final against Bayern Munich had been that without their talisman, Andrei Arshavin, they would lack creative thrust. They need not have worried.

Nobody would doubt that Arshavin is their best player, but in his absence another, less vaunted presence took on his playmaking mantle and in so doing wrote another chapter in what was already an extraordinary tale of redemption.

Six years ago football was just something Konstantin Zyryanov did to keep his mind off other realities. In the preceding two years he had lost his father and his brother and then, horrifically, his 23-year-old wife jumped from the balcony of their eighth-floor apartment holding the hand of their four-year-old daughter.

His daughter died in hospital that night, his wife a month later. "She can't have realised what she was doing," Zyryanov said. "A normal person in a normal state of mind wouldn't have done this." As the tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda reported she had been drunk, the coroner returned a verdict of suicide.

Zyryanov plodded on, patrolling the back of the midfield for Torpedo Moscow, keeping his counsel, and slowly becoming recognised as an effective if unspectacular journeyman, earning his first international call-up at the age of 28. When Torpedo were relegated two seasons ago he left and became one of the less-heralded names on a raft of signings made by Zenit in the first flush of their sponsorship by Gazprom.

Given that they also splashed out £10 million on the Ukraine international Anatoliy Tymoschuk, it was widely expected that Zyryanov would serve as back-up to him. But coach Dick Advocaat began to use him in the more advanced role he had operated in during his early days at Amkar Perm.

The effect was extraordinary. Last season brought nine goals - matching his total over seven seasons at Torpedo - and, as he helped Zenit to their first league title in 23 years and played his part in Russia's qualification for the European Championship, the 30-year-old was named Russian player of the year.

And now, with Zenit having become only the third Russian side to reach a European final, there is the possibility of yet greater achievement. "The season is still young but already so much has happened," he said. "The victories over Villarreal, Marseille, Leverkusen and Bayern have drained our emotions."

All of which has taken its toll on Zenit's league form. Just one win in their opening six games of the season has left them 13th in the table, albeit with three games in hand on most sides after the Russian authorities permitted them to postpone fixtures to aid their preparation for their Uefa Cup campaign.

"It's not easy to play on two fronts," Zyryanov said. "You have to learn to chase two hares at once. You get tired and you have to switch your attention from one thing to another."

If Arshavin took the plaudits for the quarter-final victory in Germany, it was Zyryanov who lit up the semi-final, his feint and spin on to Alejandro Dominguez's pass to score Zenit's second at the Petrovsky being hailed by the Russian press as the best dummy since Pele's against Uruguay in the 1970 World Cup.

Zyryanov's late flowering is already the stuff of folklore and, he admits, the hand of posterity weighs heavily. "We're all human," he said, "and somewhere on an unconscious level we're probably all addicted to the idea that we might win the Uefa Cup."